The CFO Proved That Inclusive Workplaces Are a Business Decision

I made the CFO of a global company cry when I did my keynote and before you continue, I want to be clear: It was not because of the price 😅

I was hired to talk about what neurodivergent colleagues wish their workplaces knew.

Halfway through, he raised his hand and said: "I am not against anything you say, but adjusting how we work for the 15 to 20 per cent who may or may not be neurodivergent still feels like a stretch for me."

So I explained.

A five to ten minute break costs nothing

Take meeting breaks. For many neurodivergent colleagues, the cognitive and sensory load of sustained group input is real. A regular break is what makes it possible for many of us to contribute out best thinking, participate in full and not arrive at home later completely burned out and unable to function as humans.

But who else benefits from a break?

• The new parent who is not sleeping.

• The colleague caring for a dying parent.

• The team member going through a divorce.

• The colleague managing chronic pain.

• The person with a hearing impairment who has been concentrating at 150 per cent to not miss anything.

• Anyone going through the grief of having lost a loved one.

A five to ten minute break costs nothing. And for a significant proportion of your workforce, it is the difference between being able to contribute fully, staying silent or choosing not to come to work at all.

What is more expensive?

After that explanation he looked me dead in the eyes. Silent. No change of expression. I finished my keynote wondering if the point had landed at all.

When the room was empty he spoke

When the room had cleared, he lingered and then came up to be and said:

"You punched me in the gut, you know. My little brother died suddenly seven years ago. I was working my dream job at another global company. Coming to work helped. I was solving problems I knew how to solve. But on my level it was back to back meetings. And grief would hit me randomly. Because I had no break to look forward to there was never five minutes to sit with it and reset. It was unbearable. I did not want to be the person disclosing my private life at work and asking for special treatment. So I quit. If we had had those breaks I would probably still be there."

He was the CFO. Losing him cost the company far more than a five to ten minute hourly break ever would.

Design your work experience to work for few every day, and your work experience will hold everyone better.

Inclusive employee experience is not about redesigning work for a minority. It is about recognising the barriers that hit some people first, hardest and every day, and designing work in a way that makes it easier for everyone to contribute and stay. Even when life is hard.

That is the principle behind everything we build at InklusioNordic. We start with the barriers that show up most often, across the most groups, and give managers practical tools to act on them. Not identity by identity. Barrier by barrier.

The fixes are often simple. They are not accommodations for a minority. They are better habits that improves work for everyone. Including the colleagues who have not told you what they are carrying.